What an amazing read this was and it has to be recommended to every one of you.

If you haven’t heard of the Amazing up and coming author, Andrew Melvin then you sure will very soon. His debut book ‘The Policeman of Secrets’ has received some top reviews all over the globe. Having picked up a copy recently it was almost impossible to put down. An absolutely stunning read from what is soon to be known as a classic!

Imagine that the next book you read will steal your mind. You will become a puppet of a secret society that is about to seize the British Empire. You and millions of others have only one hope: the courage of a roguish gentleman adventurer known as the Policeman of Secrets.

In a vivid world of steampunk and sensuality, the psychopathic members of the Arcanum plot to overpower whole countries – but they can only succeed by defeating the irrepressible Count Balthazar, a master at stealing and protecting secrets. He launches into an adventure involving rooftop chases, hijacked airships, a giant train, and surprise twists and betrayals. To survive, he must overcome the beautiful and deadly Elizabeta. Driven by violence and lust, she has ambitions of her own that will surprise everybody.

The Policeman of Secrets is a romp that races from a backstreet bookshop and secret lairs to a strange gentlemen’s club and a battle in a royal palace to decide the empire’s fate. Along the way it gives Victorian history a refreshing, erotic, and steam-powered spin.

Latest review of The Policeman of Secrets

The idea that the decision that education, and thus literacy, for the masses should have a secret sinister ulterior motive is the premise for this fictional story and it makes for a read that is exciting at times, if also slightly incredible . (But what adventure story isn’t?)

The reader is gripped by a task that is truly too important to fail. Some of the characters are better developed than others. Ironically I felt I knew some of the malign characters better than many of the ‘goodies’. However, this did not affect the general progress of the story. It feels at times that the physical demands upon the main characters must put them into a superhuman category, as they seem to deal with extremes of physicality and even wounding with little impact upon them. I couldn’t help wondering about one or two mentions of people being wounded, yet they seem to recover to play a full part in the proceedings a little while later. This presumably without the benefit of antibiotics to ward of the inevitable infection as it is set in Victorian times! The rules of the cinema clearly apply where the main characters will survive no matter what until at least very near the end, and the players we are less familiar with, and thus care less about get killed off.

The story does keep the reader enthralled though. Being someone who has limited time for reading at the moment, I found myself grabbing every spare minute I had to get through another couple of pages, so intrigued was I to find how it ended up. There are descriptions of some pretty grisly scenes, so it’s not a book for the faint-hearted. Could be gruesome if it was ever made into a film!

I believe this is the first novel of this author, and it certainly seems like a great start. Hope there will be more coming in the future!